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What Murdoch Did for Hip-Hop
Fox News has, over the years, taken its shots at hip-hop — most recently in the person of Common. But in fact, the virus of hip-hop has long infected the network from the top down. Given the current conflict embroiling Fox News’ parent company, this seems like a really good time to remember that James…
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A Hard Look at Gentrification
Whenever we talk about gentrification, it really is a good idea not simply to understand who’s coming and who’s going but precisely when the coming and going happened. In reference to our conversations around Washington, D.C., it’s really important to understand that the black population was falling in the city long before the advent of hipsters, interlopers and…
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Obama, Lincoln and the Art of Compromise
Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his op-ed column in the New York Times, tackles the fine art of compromise, arguing that it requires magnanimity as well as a hard line. The administration of President Obama has never held much regard for its left flank. Admonished by the vice president to “stop whining,” inveighed against by the…
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Black Don't Crack
Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his Atlantic magazine blog, contends that society doesn’t place as much of an emphasis on appearance as it used to. He opens with a provocative ebook excerpt from Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-1839 by Frances Anne Kemble. “Do you know that little as grown negroes are admirable for…
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Saving Black Neighborhoods
The Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates uses humor to address the backlash against the gentrification of African-American neighborhoods. … It occurs to me that we really need a world with more murders, more failing schools, more grocery stores with rotting vegetables, more bodegas with old milk, more teen-pregnancy, more homeless, more crack, more heroin, more fathers…
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The Remix: Saving Black Neighborhoods
Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates expresses his discontent with the narrative on black neighborhoods and gentrification. This time he does it without satire. On a less satirical note, a lot of my discontent with our narrative of gentrification doesn’t come from a lack of sympathy for the poor and working class of black America. On the…
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Is the Gay Culture War Over for the GOP?
Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his Atlantic blog, says that the Republican electorate is definitely undergoing a sea change when Christine O’Donnell walks off Piers Morgan’s CNN show after being pressed on her position on gay marriage. Members of the Republican Party used to take pleasure espousing anti-gay bigotry. If I were an activist, I’d be absolutely…
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Affirmative Action for Colonial White People
In his blog for the Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses how slave society, and systemic white supremacy, were pioneered in Virginia. For my piece on tragedy and the Civil War (or rather lack thereof) I’m going back over Edmund S. Morgan’s classic American Slavery, American Freedom. The book basically demonstrates how the slave society, and systemic…
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Calling the Cops on Bullies in New Jersey Schools
Blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic magazine is doubtful about the success of a new law in New Jersey that allows classmates to report lunch-line bullies in the East Hanover schools to the police through anonymous tips. He excerpts a New York Times story in the opening, which explains the reason for the law. I…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
